The poems in John Murphy’s second collection, The Language Hospital, resonate with a hard-won understanding of the complexities and difficulties of 21st century living. What is it like for a man to grieve and miss his children? To tell a story, and say something meaningful about the importance of storytelling? To love a language you barely speak? An eight year old writes his first poem, writes a second poem thirty ye...
ISBN
978-1-910669-55-6
Pub Date
Tuesday, December 06, 2016
Cover Image
Foreground (l to r): Mamie Casserly, Mary Jo Casserly (daughter of Mamie), Philomena Murphy (daughter of Mary Jo), Louise Murphy (buggy, daughter of Philomena); Background: Katie Murphy (daughter of Louise Murphy).
The poems in John Murphy’s second collection, The Language Hospital, resonate with a hard-won understanding of the complexities and difficulties of 21st century living. What is it like for a man to grieve and miss his children? To tell a story, and say something meaningful about the importance of storytelling? To love a language you barely speak? An eight year old writes his first poem, writes a second poem thirty years later, then finally, after fifteen years of writing, makes a chiasmus of the creation of the two. A conversation between a young man and a man sixty years his senior takes place over several hours – one question, one answer, and a wait for a final, timeless gesture. John Murphy is never satisfied with the obvious; and even as he tests the limits of form and language we are always reassured by the power and subtlety of his control over rhythm, image and sound. His poems are compelling, by turns delicate, challenging, comforting, and sometimes devastating. The Language Hospital truly is a rare and sensual delight for the reader.
John Murphy’s debut collection, The Book Of Water, was published by Salmon poetry in 2012, and his second collection, The Language Hospital, was published by Salmon in 2016. He has been three times shortlisted for the Hennessy Cognac/Irish Times writing awards, and has been a finalist in the UK National Poetry Competition. He won the Strokestown International Poetry Prize in 2015, and won it for a second time in 2016. He is a fellow of both the British Computer Society and the Irish Computer Society, and has worked for most of his life as a computer scientist and academic (IBM, DCU).
